we had a farm themed birthday party for my 4 yr.old daughter in october2002 it wasn't very expensive but it was fun!. our paper goods had farm animals on them(pigs,cows,horse's) and were bought at our local walmart.we knew we were doing this theme ahead so earlier when our walmart had closing buys on red gingham table cloths i bought a bunch for the food tables and the picnic tables to dress them up we bought helium filled balloons in primary colors and tied them around plastic piggy banks we filled with the tons of spare pennies we always have around and it gave them sufficient weight to anchor the balloons it was cute(i thought anyway). and we served potatoe salad,corndogs,burgers,baked beans,watermelon.i made a farm cake , i first made a regular square cake and tinted the icing green(using paste cloring) and it was a fresh grass feild then i had used my loaf pan to bake up the remainder of the cake mix and it worked out perfectly as the barn i just cut it in half and placed on half on the regular sheet cake in the middle towards the rear of the cake (to leave room for the writing) then i iced the top of the little square and put the other half on top, i took a bread knife and made the peaked roof by trimming the sides of the peice i just placed on top it was a perfect barn shape i then iced the barn red(using red tinted paste) and i bought at the dollar store a bag of farm animals it came with all the usual animals and fencing witch i placed around the barn and placed the other animals here and their . there was plenty of room left for the happy birthday(???) writing. it was the cheapest quickest and cutest party we have done! the kids couldnt wait to claim an animal after the candles were blown out! we gave out cowboy hats that had red or blue stars on them,red bandanas,sheriff badges(all of wich we ordered very inexpensively from oriental trading) wich we love! and i ordered little tractors from a john deere compant online for the goodie bags we gave also candy nuggets in little pouches,farm animal stickers,red and blue plastic whistles. we put it all in plastic pumpkins for each child because it was october, but you could just use any cellophane bags or cow printed bags would be cute! i really had fun 1 myself and there were varying ages of children from 2 yrs.- 14 yrs. i almost forgot we also had a bean bag toss from(oriental trading) that was farm themed pictures on it and if the child got a bag in any hole we had a bowl of goodies to pick a prize from(a big plastic bowl, with dollar items balls,bubbles,whistles,bendable animals,box of colored chalk,glitter crayons,plastic rings,bracelets,etc.) the ideas for the farm theme are probably endless but we kept it simple. best of luck!